The Georgia Museum of Art is welcoming visitors in a new way these days, thanks to a recent addition to the lobby walls. A new long-term installation, fittingly named “Welcome,” is not the typical welcome sign that’s often found in a lobby. Created by artist Gregor Turk, the work uses 77 recycled security cameras to spell out the titular word in a space that stretches nearly 30 feet from floor to ceiling. The installation is hard to miss and may make you feel like you’re being watched as you ascend the steps to our galleries. And that’s kind of the point.
Last month, the Georgia Museum of Art reinstalled its Marilyn Overstreet Nalley South Gallery as part of a project that began in February 2020 to refresh all the permanent collection galleries while keeping the majority of them open to the public.
Julia Sanks loved helping students. She spent much of her time giving back and encouraging students through museum programs. When she died in 2020, community docents and museum staff sat down to brainstorm how they could honor Julia’s time at the museum.
In March 2022, Athens-based artist Broderick Flanigan announced the completion of a mural honoring the Gee’s Bend Quilters at Howard B. Stroud Elementary School.
Made up of 50 Black families, Linnentown was a thriving community that existed on Baxter Street in Athens. Many of the families had employment with the University of Georgia just a short walk away. In 1962, a sign went up stating “Urban Renewal Area” without a warning, changing the lives of the Linnentown community forever.
Recently, the Georgia Museum of Art, under the guidance of its curator of American art Jeffrey Richmond-Moll, reinstalled its Nancy Cooper Turner Gallery. The project was part of the museum's ongoing reinstallation of its permanent collection galleries, which it is undertaking one at a time over a couple of years. With each gallery reinstalled, the museum hopes to bring new perspectives and new critical approaches to its collections.
A new permanent exhibition case is now open in the Phoebe and Ed Forio Gallery with almost 50 stellar examples of American and European works of art in silver. This case has been under design and manufacture for three years. Its successful implementation is rooted in a generous gift from Alex and Claire Crumbley and the Chaparral Foundation, as well as funds from the Beverly H. Bremer Charitable Lead Unitrust. This case has boosted the effectiveness of our expansive collection in silver and will be a long-term educational tool.
Cheryl Goldsleger, a native of Philadelphia, received her training there, in Rome and in St. Louis before coming south to teach and to create. Many viewers have responded to her early work (which is architectonic and features numerous empty chairs scattered throughout physically impossible buildings) with feelings of desolation. Is the viewer encountering the aftermath of a party or meeting or something post-apocalyptic? To Goldsleger, however, these spaces are just that: spaces.
UGA master of fine arts degree candidate Deepanjan Mukhopadhyay calls Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, home. Mukhopadhyay received his undergraduate degree in photography at Louisiana Tech. He continues to create art in the visual realm but has expanded beyond a single medium.
From Michelangelo’s David to Giacometti’s “Walking Man I,” sculpture has long paved the way for explorations of art and the human form in distinctive ways.
